Page 6 - CEMS News Winter 2023

Quality and Community continued from page 5 On the Author’s Bookshelf
What is your favorite book? Or who is your favorite author? Why?
A few months ago, (CEMS faculty members) Frank Bates, Aditya Bhan, and I were sharing our views on what kind
of reading we most enjoyed. Frank vigorously defended non-fiction, defined broadly. Aditya and I favored fiction. Frank makes a good case for his position, especially when
it goes beyond a narrow set of technical topics, but I’ll leave that for him to do. From my perspective, fiction—like music and art and poetry—can often convey insights and truths that go beyond the words used in the writing; a rich meta- communication. If it comes in beautiful and lush language, so much the better.
With that in mind, I land on 19th century English novels as my favorite genre, and George Eliot (pen name for Mary Ann Evans) and Anthony Trollope as its two greatest purveyors. A caveat: the “greatest” or “best” is like talking about Beethoven’s greatest hits; it doesn’t work because literature, like art, has no meaningful linear scale of greatness. But these two authors are great: Eliot, brilliant in her range of knowledge and depth of character; Trollope, in his story- telling and his insights about English politics, secular and religious. Trollope once said of Eliot (slightly critically), “She insists that every sentence have meaning.” No mean task.
Purchasing the Book
Keller’s book is available for purchase online, via the publisher’s website and on Amazon.
https://artmobile.com/collections/non-fiction/ products/quality-and-community
Kenneth Keller’s book (above) is available for purchase on the publisher’s website and Amazon.
Julie Prince among nominees for CSE Outstanding Service Award
Julie Prince, Graduate Program Coordinator, was among 16 nominees for the inaugural College of Science and Engineering (CSE) Outstanding Service Awards. The awards seek to recognize and reward exceptional performance and contributions by staff and student employees.
The awards ceremony occurred on December 9. Julie is pictured (at right) with Dr. Andrew Alleyne, CSE Dean.
Learn more about the winners, Rachel Jorgenson and Jordan Mayer, and nominees: z.umn.edu/cseosa
6 www.cems.umn.edu